


Up In Smoke

by hexagonad (ideserveyou)



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fire, M/M, Magic, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 18:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideserveyou/pseuds/hexagonad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vince has done something stupid; Howard may not be able to forgive him this time</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up In Smoke

The smell was the first thing Vince noticed: a choking, cloying smell of burnt plastic drifting down the street outside the Nabootique.

He didn’t immediately connect it with himself until he saw the thick cloud of smoke coming from the window – Howard’s bedroom window.

With a sinking feeling in his insides, he pelted up the stairs as fast as his high-heeled boots would carry him.

‘This is comin’ off your wages, Vince, you tosser, the carpet’s ruined an’ we’ll have to repaint the ceiling.’ A furious Naboo was blocking his path. ‘Good thing I’d run out of dope, Bollo smelt the smoke an’ I managed to work an indoor rain charm to put it out... Vince, are you listenin’ to me?’

‘Howard,’ Vince gasped, breathless and wheezing, ‘is Howard OK?’

‘Depends what you mean by OK. He wasn’t in the room when his books caught fire – ’

Vince sagged a little with relief.

‘ – But he’s not very ’appy. I wouldn’t go in there if I was you. I’d go down to the shop and start workin’ off that decorator’s bill you’re gonna owe me.’

But Vince had already dropped his six Top Shop bags and pushed past his pint-sized landlord into the bedroom.

‘Howard?’

‘Fuck off, you complete prat.’ Howard held up a melted, warped, shapeless object that had once been a fat, glossy photo album. ‘This is the last straw. If you had to go and set the place on fire, couldn’t you have started with something other than my photographs?’

‘I – well – I – I didn’t mean to leave my hair straighteners on top of them, not switched on anyway.’

Howard glared at him. ‘Why were you even in here in the first place?’

‘There was a pile of boxes in front of the plug in my room. You know, that fabric an’ stuff I bought last week, for my Mark 2 mirrorball suit. So I thought, since you were workin’ in the shop, you wouldn’t mind if I just popped in to your room to fix my hair before I went out. An’ then I realised I was runnin’ late an’ I left in a hurry an’ I forgot...’

Vince gave Howard a pleading look, the sort that had never yet failed him after an argument, expecting to see the big man’s expression soften, but there was no hint of forgiveness in Howard’s little brown eyes, only a mixture of helpless fury and terrible sadness.

‘I didn’t _mean_ to, Howard,’ Vince repeated, suddenly uncertain.

Howard turned away. ‘You never do, do you, Vince? You never _mean_ to cause disaster. You never _mean_ to hurt anyone. You’re just so busy thinking about yourself and your shallow concerns, you don’t consider the consequences of your actions.’ He flicked through the ruined pages, and shook his head.

‘I’m sorry, Howard.’ Vince’s whole insides felt hollow. ‘Really sorry.’

‘ _Sorry_ doesn’t begin to cover it.’ Howard flung the album into the bin with unnecessary force. ‘All those years of work – my whole portfolio – lost.’

‘But you’ve got backup copies on a hard drive somewhere, right?’

Howard gave him a withering stare. ‘These were real photographs, not your digital ephemera, no sir.’ He clenched his fists in rage. ‘They were _prints_ , you idiot. Prints from film.’

‘Can’t you get ’em reprinted?’ Vince was clutching at straws now, his whole world being washed away and himself along with it.

Howard snorted in derision; Vince noticed that his hands were trembling slightly. ‘The negatives were all filed in date order at the back of the album,’ Howard snarled through clenched teeth. ‘You’ve destroyed them too.’

‘Come on, Howard, none of it matters. It’s not about the past these days, it’s all about the future. An’ they were only pictures. They weren’t that important, surely?’

‘My dream was, Vince. My dream of being a professional photographer. Yes, it was important. Maybe not to you – I know _you_ have other more vital matters at the top of your list, like root booster and the latest sale at Top Shop – oh yes, I know where you spent your lunch hour today, I know why you went rushing off without checking that nothing of mine was in danger of being set alight by your vanity products...’ Howard’s words choked off.

‘Yeah, but dreams are just dreams, Howard.’ Vince tried to sound upbeat. ‘Listen, you’re OK, and your camera’s OK, you can take more photos, an’ some of your notebooks are only a bit singed, look... an’ hey, my straighteners don’t look too bad either, d’you reckon they still work?... Howard?... Howard?’

‘Get out,’ Howard said, speaking very quietly but somehow sounding very dangerous indeed. ‘Get out of my room now. Before I take your stupid straighteners and shove them straight up your stupid _arse_.’

Vince took one look at the deranged glint in Howard’s narrowed eyes, and went.

...

It’s teatime now, and the wind's getting chilly, and Vince’s feet are tired.

Vince’s brain is tired, too, from thinking about what happened, and wishing it hadn’t happened, and wondering what to do now that it has.

He’s had lots of fights with Howard before. They’ve both done pretty terrible things to each other before, like the time Howard sold him to a mad old hillbilly for a map of the yetis’ lair, or the time he got Howard sacked for the sake of a sparkly cape. But they’ve always made it up somehow.

Vince tries to ignore the uneasy little voice in his mind telling him that this time it’s not going to be so simple.

He hopes that Howard will have got over the worst of it by now, and that maybe the flat doesn’t smell so burnt and horrible any more, and that perhaps, if Naboo has been very busy helping Howard clean up, nobody will have noticed that Vince has been walking the streets instead of minding the shop.

When he gets home, he’ll offer to sleep on the sofa so that Howard can have his bed. Surely Howard can’t fail to be impressed at Vince’s selflessness.

And perhaps Naboo would like a mirrorball turban...

He turns the corner into the street; the burning smell has more or less gone, although Howard’s window is still open.

There’s nobody around in the shop. Vince sneaks through the door very slowly and carefully so as not to make the bell tinkle, then puts up the ‘Closed’ sign and makes his way upstairs.

The flat’s very quiet. It still smells of smoke, but that’s because Naboo is lying on the sofa smoking his hookah. He’s evidently scored a fresh supply from somewhere. Maybe that’ll have cheered him up...

‘Hi Naboo,’ Vince says brightly.

‘Vince,’ Naboo replies, without enthusiasm.

‘Alright?’ Vince falters.

‘Been better.’ Naboo’s face is expressionless, his pupils blown wide and dark by the dope.

‘Um, where’s Bollo?’

‘Gone out. He said the plastic fumes weren’t good for his asthma.’ Naboo takes another puff.

‘And... Howard?’ Vince asks cautiously, half-expecting a crazed Northerner to be lying in wait for him behind the settee.

Naboo shrugs. ‘He’s on the roof, said he’d gone up there to mend it or something. He left you a note, ’s on the coffee table.’

Vince picks up the folded, slightly charred piece of paper. With a sudden chill of horror, he realises it’s the index page – what’s left of it – from Howard’s photo album.

Vince doesn’t need to read it. He’s already racing out of the room and hurling himself towards the skylight.

‘Howard?’

Howard is standing on the ridge of the roof, one hand on the chimney, his legs all wobbly but his mouth set in a grim line.

‘Go away, Vince.’ His voice is a bit wobbly too. ‘You don’t need to see this.’

‘Howard, what are you doin’, you idiot? You can’t just jump off the roof.’

‘Oh no? I think you’ll find that I can, sir.’ Howard shifts his feet a little, and Vince catches his breath in fear.

‘Please don’t, Howard. Like you always said, you have so much to live for.’

Howard’s lip curls in a sneer. ‘Do I, Vince? With my photographic dreams all shattered, my jazz career going nowhere, and a so-called best friend who sent my happiest memories up in smoke because he cares more about his hairstyle than he does about me? Why should I want to carry on?’

Vince knows when he’s lost an argument. ‘OK then, I take your point. Your life’s a pile of shit. And so is your so-called friend.’ He climbs up and stands teetering on the ridge tiles beside Howard. ‘But I’ll tell you one thing, you Northern batty crease. If you’re going, then I’m going with you.’

He reaches out and takes Howard’s free hand in his own.

Howard turns his head sharply as their fingers meet. ‘Don’t – ’

The movement unbalances him; he sways, staggers, and loses his footing, pulling Vince down with him.

 _Shit_.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Together they fall heavily onto the tiles, slide down and drop over the edge of the guttering with a sickening lurch.

Vince feels as though time is slowing down, like it’s supposed to when you’re about to die; and it’s not exactly Vince’s whole life that’s flashing before his eyes, it’s just little bits, like photographs.

Howard dancing in a poncho. Howard snoring in his sleeping bag in the zookeepers’ hut. Howard playing new notes on his keyboard. Howard laughing at one of Vince’s jokes.

Howard in the Arctic, saying ‘I love you.’

Howard kissing him, right before the last time they fell off the roof.

As they fall past the first floor window, Vince turns his head to look at Howard. Howard’s going to be the last thing he ever sees, he thinks, and the thought is only slightly comforting, because he’s not going to be seeing him for anything like long enough, several lifetimes wouldn’t be long enough and they’ve only got, what, three seconds or so?

Through the hair blowing in his eyes he can see that Howard is looking back at him with total, terrible understanding.

He does have so much to live for. They both do.

Or rather, they both _did_.

Vince would laugh if it wasn’t so tragic.

And if his hair wasn’t in such a windswept mess.

And if he wasn’t going to die horribly in about three seconds.

Those three seconds seem to take a very long time to pass; but now the ground is very close and there’s no bouncy castle there this time.

This time they’re going to hit the ground with a bang.

It’s going to hurt. A lot.

Vince hangs on tight to Howard’s hand, and braces himself for the bang and the eternal darkness.

But the bang doesn’t come.

The bricks of the yard come very slowly, very gently up to meet Howard and Vince and bring them down to earth without so much as a bump.

Well, that was weird.

Vince lifts his head – the rest of him seems to have turned to jelly – and peers around.

Yes, this is definitely their own back yard, he’s pretty sure the afterlife wouldn’t have bin bags and a stray Flying Saucer packet and a smell of burnt plastic and cat pee.

Nor would Naboo be standing on the doorstep.

‘Naboolio?’ Vince croaks. ‘What just happened?’

The little shaman just looks at Vince with empty eyes, and doesn’t answer; he seems utterly exhausted, swaying on his feet.

Bollo appears beside him and takes his arm; leads him back inside the house before Vince can recover from the shock enough to thank him.

‘I think he just saved both our lives,’ Howard whispers.

Vince looks round at Howard, and their eyes meet, just like when they were falling.

‘Why, Howard?’ Vince whispers back.

‘I dunno... maybe he just likes having someone to complain at?’

‘No, not why did Naboo save us, he always saves us, it’s just what he does. Why did you wanna jump off the roof?’

Howard sucks in a deep breath. ‘Didn’t you get my note?’

‘Yeah, but I – Hang on.’ Vince fishes the crumpled paper out of the trouser pocket he’d hastily stuffed it into.

He unfolds it as best he can with one hand. ‘Howard, you berk, you forgot to write anything on it.’

‘I didn’t need to. Look at what it says.’

Vince squints at the slightly less charred side of the paper. ‘ _Blackpool Tower... ince and Bol... My First Porpoise Derby Win_... Actually that was your _only_ win, wasn’t it? But it’s good you were optimistic. Can’t read that bit, it’s all smudged... _Dawn on the beach, Ibiza 19_ -ninety-something.’ He giggles. ‘That was a genius holiday, even you managed to party all night. I remember that photo, you got that big drunk bloke to take it an’ it came out with the horizon all sloping. But you kept it anyway... Oh.’

He lowers the paper, abruptly sobered.

‘An’ I destroyed it, all our holiday snaps and the zoo times pictures, an’ then I told you that none of it mattered. When those were the photos you really minded about. Howard, you should’ve said.’

‘I was too angry. Or too scared you’d laugh at me again. Maybe both.’ Howard tightens his grip on Vince’s hand until it’s painful. ‘I couldn’t see any way out, except the roof. I’d lost all my records of our past, all the happy times, and that made me realise – I’d lost all hope of our having a future together...’

Vince rolls over and hugs Howard tight. ‘So that was the dream.’

‘That was the dream, Vince.’ Howard sighs deeply, his warm breath ruffling Vince’s hair.

Howard feels warm and solid and real. He feels like home. He feels great. Why the fuck has it been so long since Vince last hugged him? Vince can’t even remember when the last time was. But he’s missed this, without even knowing he was missing it; and its absence has turned him hard and brittle and selfish, trying to make sparkly clothes and hair product fill the gap where Howard should have been.

‘Howard?’ Vince asks quietly.

‘Mmm?’

‘Can we start again?’

‘Um... alright.’ Howard sounds wary.

‘Genius.’ Vince sits up and smiles at him. ‘Go an’ get your camera, then.’

Howard gets stiffly to his feet. A faint answering smile crinkles the corners of his mouth. ‘Is this going to be Page One of another album?’

‘Yeah,’ Vince says with enthusiasm. ‘A new big shiny one that’s...’

‘...not about the past, but all about the future?’ Howard is really smiling now.

‘Got it in one.’

‘Sounds like a plan, little man. I won’t be a minute.’ Restored to his former Man-Of-Action self, Howard strides purposefully up the steps and disappears inside the back door.

A chilly breeze sends the empty Flying Saucer packet scuttering across the yard.

Vince’s hair is blowing into his face, tickling his nose and no doubt looking a complete mess, but he’s not going to bother tidying it.

Not for this particular photograph anyway.

He lies back, grinning up at the grey sky, and waits for his and Howard’s new future to start.


End file.
